The Xanthic Cloistered Scholars are an enigmatic order of self described esotericists, philosophers, alchemists and volitionists that seek to cultivate the perfect form. Something they call the prime permanence, a form that can weather eternity. The Pillars and Pillarite hold special significance to the scholars and they have speculated most voluminously on their composition. The circumspect nature of their teachings are apparent to all educated people but this does little to curtail their allure. Long regarded as deluded fanfarons in the cluster their exact emergence is not known, various scholars amongst them have claimed to have created stable simulated realties, synthesize pillarite and perfect faster than light travel. Though rather predictably these are carefully guarded secrets amongst the order at least this is always the defense given by its furtive members.
Considered largely harmless they are more of a clusternet subcultural phenomena than a true religious fraternity. They themselves view their arts and rites as the truest science even if its basis appears to be primarily from old earth mythology, hermetics and thaumaturgy. A truly beneficial by-product of their foundation has been the preservation and circulation of a great deal of old earth artifacts and histories. The cultural significance of their catalogs cannot be doubted and they have restored and curated one of the largest archives of old earth literature, film and music. One that even the temple has sourced for obscure old earth knowledge.
Unfortunately their beneficence ends here as members are all too often implicated in delusional and self destructive acts that puzzle authorities across the cluster. Perhaps their most harmful pass time is the creation and curation of iatrogenic material, predominantly media that is designed to elicit a negative effect in the viewer. Many of these amount to little more than clusternet ghost stories, edited images or troubling art and eerie compositions that although creative are hardly dangerous. Though some appear to have the desired effect, through a combination of group belief, poor mental health, substance use and happenstance the admittedly disturbing content becomes truly dangerous to the sugestable. “The Giraffe King” is once such virtual experience that created a spate of hospitalisations and suicides on every world it was desseminated on. At least this was the rumor spread by the scholars, its impact is likely overstated; few accidents and no deaths were ever attributed to the exposure of the virtual experience. The accidents that occurred had mundane explanations like panic, epilepsy and intoxication. Never-the-less the media amplified hysteria led to the Giraffe king being band on many worlds and to this day it is the only virtual experience banned in the venti republic.
Much research has been done into the dynamics of iatrogenic material and their appears to some truth to that collective fears and superstitions can evoke significant affect reactions. However without the context many of these iatrogenic material are just curious experiences. Only when the individual is primed with the notion that consuming this media is harmful to them will they have an averse reaction. Even then these reactions are far from uniform and change according to the exact expectations of the user. In this way the most vulnerable are the scholars themselves as they are the only ones likely to truly believe in the more supernatural elements of this material.
The structure of the scholars is a decentralized chapter based system, there are no communities, houses of worship or holy sites say for those found in their networked virtual realities. Their interactions are almost entirely digital, through chat rooms and avatars themselves situated in whirring computers, themselves situated in grubby domiciles or cramped net bazaars. Members in real life would likely be hard to discern though in the VR they garb themselves in yellow clothing of a 1000 clashing cultures and designs. Members place a great deal of pride in designing their own avatars and often affect accents or personas to further their characters mystique. They often relate more to these constructed identities and this psychological phenomena has long been observed and studied in clusternet subcultures. The scholars' avatars take on a religious significance. For many it is the closest thing they can attain to a prime permanence and an odd contemporary funeral right has emerged among the scholars. Their VR servers are often embedded or operated by sublunary class intelligences which run a heuristic analysis on all users. Interactions are monitored and convincing chatbots can be created from this intensive data analysis. Speech patterns, interests, turns of phrase, emotional states and any and all other aspects of personality can be accurately mimicked if given enough time. When a member dies their bot can be activated posthumously and continue converse and engage with server members. So convincing are these bots that its common for novice users to not recognise they are in a ‘dead’ server, that is one entirely populated by bots for many years. It is common for members to begin relationships with these bots erroneously or otherwise and so extensive is this phenomenon that it leads to these sophisticated bots being banned in a number of population declining words. The Motion picture “Cyb3rl0v3r” based on the experiences of a former Xanthic cloistered scholar depicts though rather poorly the convincing nature of these bots and the ill effects they can have on users.
The virtual nature of the xanthic cloistered scholars though ubiquitous now and one the most defining features of their religious practices is likely only a recent development. They have likely existed in one form or another for centuries and their name hints at a more traditionally theistic origin. There are many rumors as to where they hail, most circulated by the scholars themselves. Somewhere in the Averi homeworlds appears a likely candidate as Cosa is frequently mentioned in the essential reading posts in their archived forums. Many of the chatbots when prompted speak extensively about Cosa, though this is likely a heuristic glitch or particularly persistent meme. Historically verified records of Cosa are incredibly sparse owing the utter devastation of the recrudescence period. Some speculate that Cosa itself was a city on one of the Averi worlds rather than the name of a world, others say it could be a long destroyed orbital habitat. In any case it was said to have twin suns and multiple moons and thus likely to be a super earth. No official investigations into Lost Cosa have been undertaken by the Lunar Union however many amateur archaeologists and clusternet personalities have theorized and searched extensively. They have gleamed significant information about the early scholars, they appeared to be secluded by their king to study the higher mysteries of the universe. They were tasked in times of war and conflict with attaining victory and in times of peace with maintaining order. They achieved this through seemingly supernatural means and this is perhaps why pillarite and the pillars as real world examples of seemingly inexplicable phenomena are so fixated by the contemporary Xanthic scholars.
Today the Xanthic Cloistered Scholars are far from sizable on the stage of the Cluster, never the less their presence looms large. Members are often avid interfacers or cypherpunks, drawn to the religion through its strong clusternet presence and its undeniable mystique. Once on a server they often obsessively hone their skills against one another for no other reward than the gratification of the craft itself. Unfortunately they often do this at the expense of all other aspects of their lives, but on occasion this produces a uniquely experienced individual that can run circles around professional interfacer teams and all at the cost of a sufficiently greasy meal. Because of this they are sought out or outrightly preyed upon by Armournuats and various criminal elements. The Infamous SUPERHOT was sourced in such a manner and was only apprehended by a unilateral superpower task force. The scholars are not the most stable or hygienic of compatriots but are invaluable for their passion and endurance.